Propagation
by Sigridhr
Summary: Loki and Darcy deal with the unexpected consequences of their coupling. Sequel to Supplication.


Darcy had a very, very big problem. She had dealt with several problems over the course of her life: her friendship breakup with her best friend in sixth grade over Tommy Finkelstein, who wore his baseball caps backwards, skateboarded in the hallways, and always had enough pocket money to buy those pre-mixed cups of penny candies at the local 7-11; the time she'd snuck out to go to a friend's house party, and wound up locked out of her own house all night still slightly more than half-drunk and woke up on the front porch when her dad stepped on her while trying to get the paper; or, the time she'd started having increasingly sexual dreams about an alien, and then mind-melded her way into a relationship with him.

This problem was bigger than all of them combined, despite the fact that it came in a series of small packages. She'd laid them out in a semi-circle on the bathroom counter, little blue plus signs pointing accusingly towards her.

She calculated the odds of eight pregnancy tests being wrong.

There was nothing for it. She was carrying alien spawn.

The first worst thing about being pregnant with Loki's baby was the gut-wrenching terror she felt at the prospect. The second worst thing was how warm and tingly it made her feel. For the first time in her life, she wanted to knit baby blankets while rocking back and forth in abject terror. It was a peculiar sensation, to say the least.

But the third worst thing, by far, was the prospect of actually _telling_ Loki. Because, well, she had no idea how he'd react to the prospect. They hadn't exactly discussed family planning.

She spent a long time brainstorming how to break the news gently. She watched Juno, and cried. Googled the phrase 'how to jokingly announce a pregnancy', and then cried – but for entirely different reasons that had more to do with the mutilation of the fine art of punnery than pregnancy hormones. She even, briefly, had a moment of utter insanity where she considered buying a jar of Prego pasta sauce and writing a cutesy note on it and mailing it to Loki.

In the end, however, she responded to Loki's polite "hello" with "I'm pregnant", which seemed the most straightforward method of breaking the news.

Loki blinked for a long moment and stared at her. "Well," he said. "This is inconvenient."

"Ah," said Darcy. "Well, I was going to discuss options with you, but if you don't want a baby, then –"

"No," said Loki, cutting her off. "I mean it's awkward because that's what I came here to tell you."

Darcy sat down in the middle of the floor with a loud 'thump.' "How can _you_ be pregnant?"

Loki gave an odd shrug. "It happens."

"No!" Darcy screamed, throwing her hands up in the air. "No it doesn't! People don't just simultaneously knock each other up! That doesn't even happen on _Star Trek!_"

"I fail to see how that is in any way relevant to our current situation," Loki said primly.

"Our current situation is implausibly ludicrous!" Darcy said. "We had _dream sex_! How can you get mutually impregnated from _dream sperm_?"

Loki snorted. "Please. I have previously birthed and eight-legged horse. It tends to lend one a certain degree of plausibility in these matters."

Darcy begged to differ. "I beg to differ," she said.

But there was no changing it.

What followed were both the most touching and disturbing months of Darcy's life. She discovered that the process of creating life was somewhat akin to the process of coping with death – her denial had been force to give way to the horrible reality of eight pregnancy tests and Loki's devouring an entire tub of Ben & Jerry's with pickles on top. Anger followed shortly thereafter when she discovered that Loki had finished both the ice cream _and_ the pickles, and she beat him over the head with the ice cream scoop until he went out to get more.

Bargaining was quieter. But there was no denying the constant motif of "just a few more weeks. Please hold out just a few more weeks until I get paid" as she begged the last button on her jeans to stay in place until she could afford to go out and get proper maternity clothes. Loki seemed to find it hilarious. Until she had a momentary regression to anger and he traded a priceless Asgardian artefact at an antique store for enough funds for an entire maternity wardrobe and to build a nursery.

Then came depression. In fairness, however, it was hard to not be depressed when one was the approximate size and shape of a house. She no longer fit in her own kitchen, and had to devise a spatula-on-a-broomstick robot arm in order to cook food.

It was late evening as she sat, curled up next to Loki as best she could manage with both their pregnant bellies – she'd barely managed to kiss him at all these past few months. Ever since she'd stopped being able to see her feet, leaning over not only the expanse of her own belly but his in order to kiss him suddenly seemed like considerably more effort than it was worth.

"Should we talk about names?" Loki asked.

"I suppose they might need some," said Darcy. "I want to name one after my father."

Loki squinted and looked pinched, like he was bracing himself for something horrible. "What was your father's name?" he asked.

"Kieran," said Darcy.

"Blugh," said Loki.

Darcy whacked him in the arm. "Hey! What's wrong with 'Kieran'?"

"My people have a proud historic naming tradition. No child of Asgard will be named 'Kieran'."

"Well no child of mine is going to be named Brunhilda, either!" said Darcy.

Loki looked utterly scandalized. "Perish the thought," he said.

Their arguing continued for some time.

"Perhaps," Darcy said, begrudgingly, "we can reach a compromise."

"What, name him after _both_ our parents?" Loki asked.

"Yes, and the other after us," said Darcy. "It will be a symbolic mash-up, signifying both how much we love our children, and how unique they are."

Loki gave her a long, level look. "You do realise that there is a strong element of conformity in 'unique' naming now that it's a trend, right?"

"Oh, shush," said Darcy.

Loki, obligingly, shushed.

The final stage was acceptance.

There had been small acceptances along the way. It was hard to ignore the weight gain, and the nausea. But more than those, it was the quickening that had, for the first time, made her realise the full extent of the situation she was in – or, perhaps more accurately, the situation that was in _her_.

But that was nothing on the acceptance, and terror, she felt when labour hit. Apparently Loki was determined to do absolutely _everything_ in tandem with her, and so the birth of their first (and please god, _only_) children was met with a chorus of mutual obscenities, as they screamed at each other for having got the other in this goddamn situation in the first place.

But, after, as they lay side by side, cradling their newborn babies to their chest, they toned the argument down to a series of hissed murmurs and passive-aggressive jibes.

"They're beautiful," Darcy said.

Loki wanted to agree, but at this point, agreement was tantamount to admitting defeat, so he said nothing.

"So, after my father Kieran and your father Odin, we're naming this one Okie," said Darcy, leaning over to brush her finger across Okie's warm, red cheek, "and this one, after you and I, Doki."

"Okie and Doki?" Loki said.

"This is your fault, and if you're going to piss on my moving name-mash up tribute to ourselves and our families that will guarantee our children a lifetime of swirlies, then frankly, I don't see why you're in this relationship at all."

"Okie and Doki!" Loki said.

Okie and Doki were as different as two babies born on the same day to the same parents in separate uteruses could possibly be. For starters, Okie was a boy, and Doki was a girl. Secondly, Okie was clearly humanoid (albeit a lovely shade of robin's egg blue), and Doki seemed to be the world's first genuine furry. Or possibly werewolf.

"How did we wind up with such a hairy child?!" Darcy asked one day, in the midst of an exhausted diaper change.

Loki just laughed and shrugged. "After the giant snake, I stopped asking questions."

"Do you even _listen_ to yourself speak?"

But, more than that, Okie was meticulous, bright, and terrifyingly conniving. He lined up his cookies in a row and took equal sized bites of each with a neurotic ferocity that kept Darcy up late at night reading child psychology books. He had a lawyer-like mind for finding loopholes in instructions (most of which involved getting Doki to do things he ought to have been doing).

Doki was charming, guileless, and had inherited a healthy dollop of her father's homicidal tendencies. She pulled all the heads off her dolls, and Okie went around systematically glueing them back on and trimming their hair to precisely the same length. She stomped around the house like a miniature godzilla, knocking books off shelves and taking great, chomping bites of the upholstery (or, trying to, at any right). All the while, Okie followed along behind, straightening things in her wake and soothingly, charmingly, and evilly, talking her into stealing him some cookies from the kitchen.

In the end, Loki and Darcy found that their shared stretchmarks gave them something in common to complain about, and, while they never actually had another decent night's sleep again, they didn't _entirely_ regret it.

And there was always the added bonus of making Thor babysit, which was always hysterical.

The End.

* * *

**Notes:**

Happy April Fools, everyone.

I'm a horrible human being and I'm not at all sorry. :P


End file.
